John Marsden - Incurable

No-one in his right mind would want to kill Gavin.

So, this guy wasn’t in his right mind.

That face, the pure focus on killing, the light of murder shining from him, the devotion to putting a knife through me and then through Gavin: he had to be totally psycho.

I skidded around a bush and for a moment I was out of his sight. I thought of doing a quick zig but decided on a zag instead. God, it’s awful when your entire existence depends on whether you zig or zag. I was half trying to avoid the man and half looking for Gavin. I saw the fountain, closer than I’d expected, and sprinted back towards it, I’m not sure why. It was like that was the centre of the park. I suppose you are automatically drawn to the centre of everything. And maybe Gavin would be drawn to it too.

I got to it and ran around the side. Circumnavigation. Christ there he was. In the middle of the bloody fountain! Trying to be a cherub. Well, he would have needed more than a harp and a pair of wings. It was a pretty impressive fountain, with some old guy, his arms and legs spread out, holding a sceptre or a spear or something. Gavin had wet legs up to his knees, and he was clinging to the old guy like he was clinging to life itself. It actually wasn’t a bad hiding place because someone small like Gavin, so long as he saw the man coming, could clamber around from side to side and even wriggle down into a spot deep inside the arms where I think he would have been well and truly hidden. The trouble was that instead of choosing the safe option, Gavin had popped up and was waving to me. He got my attention but he also got the attention of the man with the knife.

Things happened kind of fast from then on. The man hesitated but he was obviously going to wade across the pool. Gavin turned around to look at him. I didn’t think Gavin could get down from the fountain and run through the water with his little legs in time to get away from the man. So I used the statue for cover and started into the pool. Freezing cold it was too. Fm surprised it didn’t turn me to stone like it had the statue. But I ploughed fast through the water. Jumping in that quickly had given me a lead over the man, although I didn’t realise it until I saw him again. He had only just got in and I was nearly at the left leg. Then he saw me and that revved him up a bit. He started coming at me like a hippo on heat. Not that I’ve ever seen a hippo on heat but I’ve got an imagination. Gavin had gone up the statue instead of down. I wasn’t sure about that. He was pinning a lot of faith in this statue. But I realised that it had possibilities. The guy could chase us all over the statue but if he had to hang on with one hand while he stabbed at us with the other, we might be able to get out of his reach. We just had to be careful not to get trapped at the ends of the arms. And sooner or later someone had to come along. Didn’t they?

So I climbed too. But I was surprised at how difficult it was. Wet and slippery, green with slime and moss, and I guess a bit of pigeon poo too. It didn’t compare to the cliff on Tailor’s Stitch but I struggled to get a grip. I was just above the old man’s rock knee when the guy with the knife lunged at me. He grabbed my ankle with a grip that clamped me straight to the spot. I kicked out and his grip slipped a little, so that he had my foot rather than my ankle. I kicked again and my wet shoe came off, taking his hand with it. I climbed then, climbed like a professional fountain climber, motivated by terror, and reached the chest in about two seconds flat. I probably set a record for statue climbing.

The guy wasn’t far behind me though. Gavin manoeuvred himself around to the back where I couldn’t see him but that was OK as I thought he was fairly safe there. I went higher, up to the neck and then onto the beard, and sat looking down at the guy. I thought I was in a good position. If he came up there I could kick out and knock the knife from his hand, if not dislodge him as well. I glanced at the pocked and lined face of the statue. His blind eyes stared out at the park, at the sky, at nothing. Yet I felt there was wisdom in those eyes. Maybe I could trust my life to him. I peered around the back and could just see Gavin’s hand and a part of his arm. I looked down again and saw the man. He was going after Gavin, seemed like, edging around the front of the statue. He was like a blot on the huge old figure, like a moving cancer. I wondered how God could create people like Robyn and Fi and Lee and Homer, who were good people, always trying to do their best, and also create people like this, who wanted only to destroy. And he was dangerously close to doing that. I don’t think Gavin realised how close he was, because as I glanced down again Gavin came into view, doing a traverse around the back of the statue until he was directly underneath me.

He looked up and saw me, and I waved to him to come up, and at the same time started going down to help him. I guess I distracted him for that moment and suddenly the man’s hand came around the side of the fountain and grabbed Gavin’s ankle in the same vice grip that I’d felt only a minute or two before. Gavin looked like he’d got 240 volts up his bum. He arched his back and nearly lost his grip. For a moment he did a different kind of dance to the earlier one through the park; this time he waved his arms and kicked out with his free leg and waggled his head frantically, trying to keep his balance. The guy started dragging at him. I couldn’t even see the man, could only see his hand and most of his arm, but I could see the pressure mount as Gavin got drawn away. He wrapped both hands around a knobbly bit of the statue, a kind of tree stump that the giant was leaning against, and he hung on for dear life, literally.

By then I was nearly at his level, descending fast and furious. That practice on the cliff had definitely helped, although I almost slipped and crashed down at one point. Still, on the scale of things that had happened to me, I thought that rated pretty low. I was on a route that took me out of sight of Gavin, pretty much, because I wanted to get around the other side. But he grunted, ‘Help me, Ellie,’ in one of the clearest statements I’d ever heard him make. It was a grunt, but one that would have gladdened the heart of any Speech and Drama teacher. Then I heard him scream.

Funny, I thought I’d been going fast before that, but I’d been shuffling along at the pace of a ute with thirty bales of hay. I know that because when I accelerated I could feel the wind through my hair. Almost. I got around the side of that fountain and launched myself onto the guy with a burning ambition: ‘Kill him.’

I think from my limited knowledge that when you fight someone who wants to kill you, you’re at a bit of a disadvantage. His motivation is stronger than yours. He wants to save himself from being killed, plus he wants to kill you. You only want to save yourself. But that’s not enough. He’s got double the drive that you have. So you have to want to kill him too. Otherwise your energy won’t be as good. It’s horrible but it’s true. So I developed in that instant, from nowhere except my war experience, a total focus on ending his life right there in the cold waters of the fountain.

He had stabbed Gavin in the leg, to make him let go of the knobbly bit he was hanging on to, and so the first thing I saw was blood down the man’s arm and on the knife and dripping into the water. At the same time he had heard me coming so he was expecting me, and he let go of Gavin and turned to take care of me. At least I’d taken the heat off Gavin for a moment. Now all I had to do was to kill this person. Our pleasant Saturday morning stroll through the park, towards a meeting that should have been wonderful, had turned into this: me intent on an act of homicide, having no greater purpose in life than to kill another human being.